


Perception: Shadow

by farad



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:44:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after "Wagon Train", Vin contemplates what he's doing and who he's doing it with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perception: Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Dichotomystudio's image: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1790695 
> 
> Notes: Set after "Wagon Train". Special thanks to my awesome betas (in this case, Jojo and Thaccian) and to Dichotomystudio's for the use of the wonderful illustration of Chris. Thanks to the wonderful Zeke Black and her Magnificent Seven Handbook for the quotes from "Wagon Train".

Comanche moon.

That's what it was, big and bright and still growing. Not as bright as the sun, but bright enough to see almost everything as clear as if it were day.

It'd been this way for the past two nights, since they'd gotten back from that damned wagon train.

It'd been that way as if to spite him, to remind him of his own blindness, the blindness that had led him to try to run away with Charlotte.

Even now, two nights back, two nights away from her, his cock still stirred at the thought of her. 

But it wasn't – it wasn't what he wanted it to be. It wasn't what it should be. 

He sighed, leaning against the horn of his saddle as he stared up at the moon. When he'd been a boy, still young enough to be sent to bed after supper, he'd heard his elders talking about these moons, talking about them with fear. This was when the Comanche came, as if out of nowhere, sweeping down on the farms and homesteads, taking what they wanted and killing everyone they didn't have a use for. Killing folk in nasty, vicious ways. 

And then they'd come one night and taken him, and killed the last family he had. His ma was long gone, and the man she'd married 'fore she'd died had taken his brother and sister away. He'd been left with his ma's ma, who didn't care for him overmuch, and with an uncle who'd just as soon he was dead, so when the Indians came, he hadn't had a lot to fight for. 

When they'd taken him, they'd let him know early on that he was welcome among them, let him know that he was wanted. It was a different way of thinking. 

The first time he'd gone out with them on a hunt under this big moon, he'd worried that he was hurting people who he should care about. But the people he was with, The People as he knew them, cared about him and wanted him not only to survive, but to thrive. To be who he was. 

They didn't care that his parents hadn't been married, they didn't care that he didn't know his Bible verses – hell, they didn't care about the Bible. 

They cared that he was one of them, that he was happy. And they cared that he understood his   
responsibility to the group, to all of them. Being part of the family meant helping the family survive – not the way it had meant before, not in making his uncle wealthy or his grandmother respectable, but in truly feeding the people he cared about. 

The brightness of the moon had taken on a new meaning then; it was a moon that he could use to help his new family get what they needed to live while also keeping them from doing too much destruction and damage to his old family – or to the people from which he had come. 

He'd stayed with The People as long as he could, until the people of his old life had come to destroy his new one. The damage had been great, maybe not in true deaths, but in the death of the way of life he had come to know and love. 

He had wanted to go to the reservation, to the new life. He'd had vague memories of the way he'd lived before, and he'd thought that he could help The People learn this new way. 

But the Army, the white men on horses with their guns and cannons, had seen his whiteness and refused to accept his choices. They had taken him away, forced him to abandon his chosen kin. They had claimed that he had family from before who wanted him back. 

Strangers. Familiar faces, yes, but still strangers. And strangers who didn't want him. They'd agreed to take him in because it was what they were supposed to do, but they didn't want him, and he had seen that from the start. 

He'd waited as long as he could, until the next bright moon. Until he couldn't control the memories of the life he'd led and what he should be doing when the moon was this bright, this much like the sun. He'd left them and what they wanted. He'd tried to find his people, but that, too, was now lost to him. 

So he'd done what he could to walk the line of both lives. He'd stayed away from the white folk as much as he could, though he'd had to take jobs from time to time that forced him to deal between them and The People. He'd hated it, but he'd done what he had to to stay true to who he was, to what he believed was right. 

And now here he was, staring at the moon and trying to figure out how he had let himself be bewitched.

The People believed in that, that there were evil people who had the power to bewitch others, to force them to their will. 

Maybe that's what Charlotte had been, a witch. She'd had some sort of sway over him, from the second he'd laid eyes on her. She'd been struggling with that box and though he would have offered to help, in that second, he'd felt compelled to help, to take it from her whether she wanted him to or not. From there, the feeling had grown, to the point that he'd felt like he had to take care of her, to rescue her from her uncaring husband and her sad life. 

Running away with her had seemed the easiest way to rescue her. Some part of his brain had known it was a bad idea – hell, she was a married woman! It was a damned wonder Will Richmond hadn't shot him. In truth, it was only the help of his friends, of Chris, that had saved him. 

And there it was, the proof that she was a witch. She'd drawn him away from Chris. 

Which was why he was out now, in the middle of a bright desert night, trying to get his head right. 

Trying to get her out of it. 

Chris' words kept echoing, over and over: 'I need to know I can depend on you, Vin. Let me know when I can.'

As if Chris hadn't been caught up in Mary's romance with Gerard. 'Course it'd been because she'd dragged Chris into it, trying to get him to take a stand on his feelings for her. 

The idea of that made Vin's stomach knot – and his legs, too, or so it seemed, as his horse shifted and stamped its foot, irritated. Without thinking, he reached down and patted the horse's neck. "Come on," he murmured, nudging the horse on. 

He let the horse have its head, his mind wandering. The night was warm, some of the day's heat still lingering. It made him think of that first night with Charlotte, after they'd rescued her from Dickie O'Shea and his men. She'd been scared and tired and then so willing, so desperate for his attention, for his affection. 

Not like Chris at all. 

The idea of needing someone would make Chris laugh. Chris worked hard to take care of himself, to keep people out. Hell, when Vin had first met him, Chris had been on the run from Buck, trying to put distance between the two of them so he could stand on his own. 'Course, there were lots of other things going on between him and Buck by then, what with losing Sarah and Adam. 

And losing them was a big part of why Chris didn't ever want to need anyone, ever again. 

Vin understood that. He'd lost two families he'd needed, his ma and his native folk. He'd found it easier to live on his own, not relying on anyone else. It hurt too much to lose them. 

Easier to live as he was now, alone, staying on the edges. 

Staying as he was now, in the shadows, hidden away from the light. 

It was what he had learned from The People, the art of hiding just out of sight, of taking advantage of the margins. 

It was not, though, the way Chris was. Chris didn't hide. Chris was right out there. While Vin looked for the puddles of black in a sea of light, Chris sparkled in the brightness. He drew trouble the same way Vin tried to shy away from it. 

Chris would stand in moonlight, daring anything to come at him, while Vin would do as he was now, staying in the shadows, hiding from the touch of those moonbeams. 

Chris would stand there, watching Mary and grinning a challenge to Gerard, the poor dumb bastard, while Vin would take Charlotte on the sly, and run away to Brazil, if she wanted. 

Light and shadow. 

He'd been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't paid much mind to where they were going, as long as they stayed in the darkness. So it wasn't much of a surprise when his horse stopped, the sound of another horse low in the distance. 

They were stopped in a pool of darkness from which he could look out and see the fenced corral and dark shape of the barn. In the distance stood a small herd of horses. In the glow of the moon, he could make out Chris' gelding, the black he preferred to ride. It was the leader of this group and it was the one making noises at his own horse. 

They knew each other well, these two, had spent more than their fair share of time together. As had their riders. But things were different now, weren't they. 

A cloud passed over the moon, creating a dark path through the brightness. His eyes naturally followed it, always looking for a better, darker place to hide. The path of the cloud, though, went along the worn path from the corral, up the short slope to the cabin. 

It wasn't a large cloud and it wasn't moving slow; as it drifted past, the moonlight danced along the grassy ground behind it, catching on the slick sides of the leaves which seemed to glow. From there, it stretched up the rails of the porch, the wood looking like gold, until it caught the broad glass window full on. 

It was like a sunrise, so bright that he had to look away from it. 

He'd hated that glass from the first time he'd seen it. Before it had come, the cabin had been open, the night breeze blowing through, the smell of the grass and desert and horses rich and welcoming. He could lay in the bed beside Chris, hearing the sound of the other man's breathing mixing in with the night bird calls, the low snorts of the horses, the rumble of distant thunder. 

It'd been the closest he'd come yet to finding the peace he'd had with his native kin. 

But Chris had wanted this big piece of glass, wanted to put a wall between him and the outside. Sure, it'd been a nice wall, one he could see through, but it was still a wall. 

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he looked back to the cabin. The reflection was slowly giving way, and as it did, he could make out an image behind the wall of glass. 

Chris. Of course. Standing, staring right at him, as if he had known Vin was there. Hell, maybe he had. 

He was bright, his hair shining like the sun, his bare chest and arms pale like the moon. Casting back the light the same way the glass had, as if it were a weapon he could throw. 

Vin looked away once more, into the darkness that surrounded him. As he stared at the ground, it occurred to him that Chris couldn't see him – well, Chris shouldn't see him. 

But then Chris had never been like anyone else. Chris had seen him from the start, when he'd stood on the boardwalk, broom in his hand, apron around him. He hadn't counted on it, though, not until he'd gone back in and come out with one of Watson's rifles in place of his apron and broom. 

Chris had looked straight at him, seeing him for exactly who he was. And he'd kept that same stare, right into Vin's soul, from that point on. 

Even now, hidden as he knew he was in the shelter of the copse of trees, he knew Chris could see him. So it was no surprise when he heard his name called, muffled just a little by the damned glass. 

"Tanner! Get your sorry ass in here!"

He sighed. This wasn't what he had planned, not dealing with Chris who was clearly still angry. Vin had wanted to stay as far away from Chris as he could. He'd wanted to have the courage to go ahead and leave. Because even without Charlotte, who he knew he hadn't really loved, he knew that he and Chris were no good. It couldn't last. 

'Let me know when I can.' 

Seemed to Vin that it was more likely a question he should be asking. But he didn't have to. He knew the answer. 

He should turn away, ride back out into the night, leave this be. And he was trying to do just that, turning his horse back to the trees, when the door of the cabin opened and Chris stepped out. He was still in the direct path of the moon, his skin shining like a lamp. 

His voice was louder now, the wall of glass gone. "Tanner! Don't you ride away from me!"

Vin closed his eyes. He thought better in the darkness, where he felt safe, where he felt hidden. Where he wasn't distracted by all the shiny things he couldn't have. 

"Don't you run out on me again, damn you!" Chris' voice was louder now, and Vin could hear the slur in it. He'd been drinking. 

'Run out'. Well, it was hard to argue that he'd done otherwise, when he'd left with Charlotte. But he'd told Chris that that was done. That he was right here now.

Chris had doubted him. Just as he was doing so now – only now, Chris was also drunk. 

And under it all, no matter how much he wanted otherwise, Chris was never going to give him what he needed. He was never going to be a part of Chris' light. 

"Goddammit, Vin! What more do I have to do? I ain't interested in Mary! Hell, I tried to make that clear, not just to her, but to you! If you didn't have your head stuck up your ass – or up that Richmond woman's – you'd have seen it!" 

Blackness blinded him for a time, but it wasn't the shadows or the night – it was pure anger, a rage that boiled up from his innards and exploded in his head. Images of Chris and Mary tumbled around in his head, of Chris smiling at her, of the two of them standing near a wagon, their heads bent together, her smile soft. Of Chris helping her into her saddle, of him sitting with her and Billy, near the campfire, their voices low and sweet. 

As far as Vin could tell, Chris hadn't told her anything, ever. In fact, he'd avoided telling her anything that might put her off – 'cause he couldn't admit it to himself. 

And Chris thought that Vin had chosen Charlotte over Chris – 

Because he had, hadn't he. Bewitched by her. He'd taken up with Charlotte because she'd needed him. He'd taken up with her because it was better than sitting there watching Mary and Chris and Gerard. 

What if Chris needed to be needed? What if - 

He shook his head. Chris didn't need anyone, and he didn't want to be needed. How many times had he left town because he wanted to be alone, to not hear people calling his name, to not have people chasing him down to ask for help?

As if hearing his thoughts – or maybe, just maybe, knowing him – Chris called out, "I can't track the way you can, Vin. Don't make me come look for you."

It was still loud and angry, but it wasn't as loud or as angry. And as the words echoed in his head, Vin thought maybe there was a sound like asking in them. 

He sighed and opened his eyes. The shadow was soft and warm, hiding him. As he sat, looking at the ground, he could make out the lines within the blackness, the darker shape of a tree, the barely lighter color of the dirt. 

If he looked up, he would be blinded, as he had been before, the light of the moon, the brightness of the night, making it impossible for him to see the hidden dangers. 

"Vin?"

One word, softer now, as if Chris were giving up. Maybe it was that, the sound of surrender. It wasn't something Vin could stand in himself, sure as hell something he couldn't stand from Chris. 

His hand, as if making its own decision, tugged at the reins and turned his horse back. 

Vin still stayed in the shadows though, from long habit. He sat, staring at the cabin, at Chris standing on the porch. He had on his black pants, the fabric clinging to his lean thighs and slender waist. The fine hair on his bare chest sparkled in the light, just as the scattered hair on his head did. 

Sometimes, Vin thought Chris wore black as if he could draw shadows to him, as if he could hide in plain sight. But most time he knew that Chris wore black to challenge the sun, to challenge the day, to show anyone, everyone, where he was. 

And try as he might, Vin couldn't tear his eyes away. 

That was the way it had always been with Chris. It was the problem Vin had had since that first day, walking down the street at high noon. Fighting to save Nathan. Walking into the saloon. 

No one remembered him. He was part of the desert, part of the landscape. 

Chris, in black, in the sun, soft spoken, fast gun. Everyone remembered him. 

And sitting here, staring at Chris, Vin knew how stupid he'd been. Leaving with Charlotte, running away with her – it meant nothing. Sure, she'd needed him and he'd needed to be needed. But in time, a short time as far as he could tell, they'd both have realized how stupid they were. 

How stupid he was. Bewitched, maybe, but not for the first time. And that spell hadn't been strong enough to stand up to the first enchantment, the one that started on the boardwalk.

Chris drew a deep breath, his shoulders drawing back, his chest expanding. Vin couldn't look away. 

He couldn't think. 

Which, distantly, he knew was just as it had been with Charlotte. Only now, he was forgetting the reasons why he should leave, why he should put all of this behind him. 

But the void, the emptiness, the hole that came from knowing that no matter how good this was now, it would never last, that place was still there. Even distracted by what he was seeing, he felt the ache of it. 

He didn't move – his horse didn't move, though it shifted, tired of being still. But that wasn't what gave him away. 

It was once more the moon. 

The People had taught him that the moon was fickle; she could be your friend or she could be your enemy. He had known better than to sit in one place too long, for sometimes, she'd seek you out and show you to your enemies. 

As she did now. The shadows fled before her, skittering away as the moonbeams slid up the legs of his horse, over her long neck and nose and right up into Vin's own eyes. 

When he could see again, Chris was standing before him, one hand holding onto his horse's bridle. He didn't say anything, just held Vin's gaze for a time. 

Like the sun, glowing and golden, and burning Vin up. 

He couldn't walk away from this, not now. He'd never been able to walk away from Chris, no matter what had happened with Charlotte. They'd come back, the pull too strong. And if Chris had said something before, Vin wouldn't have let it ever get that far. 

But asking wasn't Chris' way. It was too close to needing.

This was the closest, though, that Chris would ever come to asking Vin to stay. He didn't say a word, but he didn't have to. With a slight tilt of the head that could have been a nod, Chris turned, leading Vin's horse toward the corral. 

They worked together in silence, but it was familiar – the work and the quiet. Vin settled his tack in the barn while Chris turned his horse out with the rest of the herd. 

As Vin came out of the barn, he hesitated. But no amount of thinking would change the way of it. So he followed Chris across the long, dark path to the corral gate and then up the winding dark path to the cabin, following the trail the moon had taken not so long ago.

As they neared the door, the hated window glowed like dawn, seeming to draw Chris' light away – drawing Chris away. 

Vin stopped, staring at it. He could see nothing behind it, feel nothing behind it. 

Though he knew what was really on the other side of it. It was this side that he would miss – the smell of the desert, the sound of night birds and insects, the feel of the cool breeze on his skin. 

Chris had gone through the door, the darkness inside sucking all trace of him away. But as Vin stood still, staring at the reflection in the glass, Chris' face, framed by his golden hair, appeared in the slice of blackness framed by the doorway. "You still thinking about Brazil?" he asked, his voice low but sharp. "Here ain't good enough for you anymore?"

Vin stared at the face he knew so well. It was alone, as if hanging on its own in the night. But he knew the long, lean body attached to it, knew it waited for him. 

"Figured you didn't give a damn," Vin said finally, needing to hear his own voice. 

Chris stared at him, his green eyes like fine crystal. After a time, he said, "You figured wrong."

As his words trailed off into the night, the moon moved again, and Chris seemed to disappear into the shadow. 

But this time, Vin followed.


End file.
